


Riptide

by Citlali



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Disasters, Foggy is a hero, M/M, Subways, Super Foggy!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-27 17:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5058271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Citlali/pseuds/Citlali
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy had plans to meet Matt after work...</p><p>This is New York and New Yorkers aren't idiots.  Everyone knows that if you hear an inhuman screech coming from a dark tunnel the best thing to do is get the hell out of Dodge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When it happens he’s thinking about sending Matt a text message to order some take out.  Foggy convinced Matt to watch the latest Avengers Documentary with him, Foggy managed to sell it as a kind of research project on how to go forward with the Daredevil thing and Matt actually didn’t think it was the dumbest idea on earth.  

What kind of take out?  Something with noodles would be good…  

Then there’s the sound.  Sounds in the subway aren’t exactly an unheard of thing.  There are always squeals and pops and rumblings.  No one usually notices or cares.  This is different.  It sounds like something screaming.  Something loud and not human.  

Foggy remembered hearing something sort of similar once at the beginning of what is now often referred to as ‘The Incident’.  To him, it sounded like reality being viciously stabbed.  

It’s rush hour.  The subway platform is packed and the platform is loud and everyone is going about their own business.  After the scream rips through the air an eerie silence follows, as though everyone is holding their breath.  That doesn’t last, or course.  The collective breath is held for three seconds and then is let out in a rush as the fire alarm sounds.

This is New York and New Yorkers aren’t idiots.  Everyone knows that if you hear an inhuman screech coming from a dark tunnel the best thing to do is get the hell out of dodge.  

There’s a mad rush for the exit.  Foggy feels himself pushed in several directions as the mass of bodies surges forward.  There is a security guard on the stairs, he’s yelling and trying to calm people down and help direct them in as orderly a way as possible.  No one is having anything of it.  

There are no other sounds coming from the tunnel yet.  But there is a smell.  It smells like burnt rubber, sulfur, and fish and there’s a slight wisp of smoke trailing through the darkness, and it’s glowing.  It’s green.  The smoke is glowing green.

This is so not going to be good.  

He does what he can.  He’s focusing on the people around him.  Not everyone reacts the same way in a crisis.  There’s a businessman in his fifties who is just standing back away from the surging crowd trying to escape and he’s crying.  Foggy steps closer.  

“I thought they said something like this wouldn’t happen again.”  The man says.  

So, okay.  Maybe Foggy wasn’t the only one to see a correlation between the sound to ‘the incident’.  He puts his hand on the man’s back and gently pushes him towards the slowly flowing river of people headed towards the exit.  “It’s going to be okay.”  

It might be a lie, but it’s okay to lie in an emergency situation if it means calming someone down.

The man starts moving, as though that’s all he needed was a bit of a jump start.  

There are three teenagers who look like they’ve won the lottery standing on the edge of the platform and staring into the darkness beyond.  Not so dark anymore, more of that glowing smoke was making it’s way forward, slinking along the ground.  

“Come on.  Time to get going.”  Foggy urges them away, and apparently he’s adult enough now that they listen and act like he has some kind of authority.  Cool.  

“Do you think the Avengers are going to show up?”  One of them asks.  

“Probably just a gas leak.”  Foggy answers.  This lying thing is getting easier.  

“But it’s glowing.”  A girl points at the smoke.  

Yeah, he’d noticed that.  “They do that now, so the firefighters know which gas line to turn off.”  

“Oh.”  The previous excitement fades from all three of them and they shuffle into the line.  

There are the stragglers.  A few old people who were afraid of being crushed in the crowd, a woman who is really determined to catch the next train.  Do you hear any trains running right now? A family frantic to find their five year old daughter lost in mass of evacuees.  They find her and keep moving.  Finally, there’s just Foggy, the security guard, and a couple other helpful bystanders.  

There’s a lot more glowing smoke coming up from the tunnel now.  It doesn’t move naturally.  There are tendrils that snake out of the main cloud that look like they are searching for something.  

“Did you check the bathrooms?”  The security guard asks.  

They look at each other.  No.  

“I’ll take the men’s room if you take the women’s.”   Foggy offers.

The security guy, “My name is Joe,” looks at Foggy and nods.  He tells the others who stayed to help to get the hell out.  They don’t hesitate, they are happy to leave.  

The bathrooms are empty.  

That just leaves Foggy and Joe.   Time to get the hell out.  The smoke is wrapping around their ankles now.  Foggy can feel it slithering up his pant legs and that just isn’t right.  Their footsteps on the stairs as they run up echo hollowly in the unnatural silence.  

They get to the top… the fire doors are closed.  

Joe slams his fist against the metal doors.  He yells and swears and threatens.  Foggy is out of breath.  After five minutes of banging and yelling they both know the doors aren’t going to open.  

“There’s other exits.”  Joe says.

Neither of them are keen to go back down into the smoke.  But what choice do they have?  

They run back down.  The smoke, who is Foggy kidding, that’s not smoke.  It’s think and it’s up to their waist.  And yes, it’s yet again crawling, crawling, up his pant legs in the most creepy way imaginable.  

The maintenance doors and construction access halls locked electronically with the fire alarm.   There are two emergency exits.  Foggy tries the one on the right and Joe tries the one on the left.  Both doors one.  

“They can’t both be locked, right?”  Foggy yells across.  

Joe nods.  “One of us makes it, he sends help for the other.”  He suggests.  

Foggy agrees.  “Good luck.”  He calls back.  

Foggy runs.  He expects to hear the door behind him click shut, but that doesn't happen.  The smoke is thick, it’s pressing against things in a very not smoke kind of way.  Foggy runs until he reaches a door, he pushes on the handle.  Nothing.  It’s locked.  

There’s a moment of panic and Foggy freaks right out and kicks and thumps and pushes on the damn door.  It’s not moving.  He hopes Joe had better luck.  He starts back down the stairs but the smoke is already higher than the door and he stops and runs back up.  

He’s fucked.  He knows this.   

And so he calms down.  There’s some time left.  Not enough, but some.  The smoke is steadily crawling up the stairs.  

Foggy pulls his phone out of his pocket and calls Matt.  And maybe there is a god, or someone who believes in cell phone reception because he actually through.  

He wants to tell Matt to call the fire department and order them to open the fucking door.  

“Hey, did you decide what you want to order for take out?”  Matt asks as he answers.  

It isn’t smoke.  It’s glowing green and it’s tugging, actually tugging at his shoe laces!  

Foggy remembers playing would you rather with his little cousins at their last family get together.  And it seems like a random thought but it isn’t.  

Would you rather rant about alien smoke and evil plots as you die, or say goodbye to your best friend in a way that won’t scar him for life?  

And so Foggy takes a deep breath and says instead, “Hey, I’m not going to make it over tonight, buddy.  I just wanted to say sorry.”  

“Something wrong?”  

“Just things, you know.  The subway sucks.”  He laughs at his own joke.  Good one Foggy.   

“Do you want me to come to your place instead?”  

“Not tonight.”

“Tomorrow then?”  Matt sounds disappointed and Foggy’s trying not to cry and doing a shit job of it.  “Foggy, are you okay?”  

“Hey Matt, I’m feeling sentimental so just listen.   I don’t say it enough.  You’re my best friend.  You know I love you, right?”  

The smoke is crawling up his back and through his hair.  He can feel it on his face and the smell of it is just, ugh.  But isn’t painful so at least there’s that.  If he thought he might start screaming or something he’d rather hang up the phone first, and he does not want to hang up the phone.  

“You’re my best friend too.”  Matt says.  

Oh fuck.  It’s in his mouth and up his nose and down his throat and he can’t answer.  He can’t feel himself breathe.  (But at least it doesn’t hurt.)


	2. Chapter 2

Matt listens very carefully.  He knows the connection isn’t dead.  He can hear breathing but otherwise it is very quiet.  Foggy doesn't do silence.  When Foggy is in his apartment there is always music playing in the background.  When Foggy is walking down the street there are traffic noises.  He always know where Foggy is based on the background noise.

There is no background noise.  The silence makes it sound like Foggy isn’t anywhere.  

“Foggy.”  He says again.  He says it again louder.  “Can you hear me?  What’s happening?”  Matt isn’t about to put down the phone.  Not when he knows something is very wrong and his best friend is still on other end but not saying anything.  

The most terrifying thing is that he needs to listen very carefully just to hear Foggy breathe.  

He’s got his jacket on and he doesn't even bother with the cane as he runs out the door.  He needs to find Foggy and doesn't have time to waste on being blind.  Where is he going?  He doesn't even know where Foggy is, but he can’t do nothing.

The most obvious place to start is Foggy’s apartment.  Matt stands by the curb and focuses on the street around him.  He can identify the cabs from the sound of their dispatch radios and he waits.  One is coming.  It's empty other than for the driver.  He raises his arm and it pulls up beside him.  He tells Foggy’s address to the woman driving and sits back.  “Please hurry, it’s an emergency.”  

“I’m not risking a ticket for you.”  She states bluntly.  

“I’m not asking you to.  Just please, I need to get there as quickly as possible.”

“Are you alright?”  

“I’m fine.  I need to find my friend.”  Matt states.  The phone is still by his ear.  

“Is this about what happened on the subway?”  

Matt doesn’t know what happened on the subway.  Matt feels like he doesn't know anything.  “Just please hurry.”  

She shrugs.  She’s got the radio on in the background.  The song cuts out half way through to be replaced with the news director of the station.  “Breaking news at this hour.  Tragedy in the subway.  There are reports of a derailed car and several underground natural gas explosions at Times Square.”  

“Wait, wait stop.”  Matt presses the phone even closer against his ear.  He can’t hear Foggy anymore.  “I need out.”  The car pulls over to the side of the road and he’s only dimly aware of what’s going on around him.  “How much?”  He needs to ask, because it might not be obviouse at the moment but he is still blind and can’t see the damn fee display.

_Foggy had said, The subway sucks._

“Don’t worry about it.”  She says.  “I hope your friend is okay.”  

Matt can’t even think to answer.  All his attention is on focused on his phone and the nothing he hears on the other end.  He’s out of the car but the traffic is loud.  If only he could listen.  He doesn’t know where he is even though his senses sort through more information about his surroundings than any of the pedestrians around him.  There are too many details and they don't form a clear picture.  He follows the side walk and edges closer to the building on his left.  The air swirls as a motorised revolving door spits people in and out.  Inside the building is better.  

“Foggy?  Say something if you can hear me.”  

Still nothing.  

He doesn't know where he is but he knows he’s in a lobby of glass and carpet.  A hotel.  It smells expensive and new and has vaulted ceilings with a huge chandelier.  A family is standing at the front desk asking about pool hours.  People are walking by and dragging wheeled luggage.  

Still too loud.  He walks deeper into the building.  He finds a hall where there aren’t people.  The walls are thick and the carpet plush.  The rooms around him are mostly empty.  He knows Foggy is still on the line because he can hear the background line static.  But he can’t hear Foggy breathing.  

“Foggy.” Matt says and he waits.  “Foggy.  Tell me you’re okay.”  

He has no reason to think Foggy was anywhere near the subway accident except for the fact that, yes, that was exactly where Foggy would have been.  He’d spent the afternoon in Astoria in a meeting with another law firm consulting on a case they were working on and had called Matt to let him know he was on his way back.   

There are still too many noises.  Matt can hear a radio from the room down the hall.  The radio host is talking about the explosions in Time Square station.   Emergency crews are working to ensure the safety of everyone in the area.  Someone on the street is interviewed and she’s crying because she was there when it happened.   She says the explosion sounded like someone screaming.

The phone stays silent and Matt remains sitting in the relative quiet of the hall listening to a radio only he can hear.  

He can’t hear Foggy breathing.

"Foggy."  Matt says into the silent phone.  "I love you too."

Eventually the call disconnects on its own.  

…

The radio said nothing about casualties.  

At some point Matt gets up and figures out where exactly he is.  He’s close to Time Square.  The streets are blocked off, there are thousands of people stranded and lost and panicked.  There are reporters at every intersection.  There are emergency vehicles with their sirens blaring.  Matt doesn’t add himself to the mix.  

If Foggy had been there, he’d have made his way home.  

Matt walks to Foggy’s apartment.  He has a spare key and lets himself in.  The apartment is empty.  He has the same model of phone as Foggy.  He moves the charge cord from where Foggy has it on the kitchen counter to an outlet beside the couch because he can’t bring himself to put the phone down.  

Foggy would have told him if he was in trouble.

Foggy would have told him.  

_Foggy had said, The subway sucks._

Foggy probably made other plans.  Marcie must have called him for a date.  It’s all a misunderstanding and Foggy probably just cancelled their evening because he ditched Matt for Marcie.   Foggy is fine and he’s going send Matt a text to let him know he’s okay.  Foggy will come home and he'll laugh because Matt is camped out on his couch and Matt will be embarrassed because he overreacted.  

Foggy will come home any minute.  

...

When the phone does ring he jumps.  It just rings.  There is no caller ID.  It isn't a call from Foggy’s phone.  

He answers it.  

“Matthew Murdock?”  The woman on the other end asks.  

“Yes.”  

“This is Alicia Denver at Mount Sinai Hospital.  We have you listed as Franklin Nelson’s emergency contact.”  

“Yes.”  He swallows and waits.  

“I need to ask you some questions about Mr. Nelson's medical insurance.”  

A clock in an adjoining apartment chimes twice.  It’s two am.  

 


	3. Chapter 3

## Chapter 3: Isolated

They are keeping Foggy in quarantine isolation.  No one is allowed to see him.  

Why does no one question why the victim of a gas explosion is in quarantine?  

Because this is New York and a few years back a hole opened in the sky and aliens started flying around in the streets and wrecking buildings.  It’s better not to ask questions about things you don’t want to understand.  

It's better this way.  It was a gas explosion.  That’s the end of it.  

Except that isn't the end of it because people died.  Everyone in the train that got derailed died from either the impact or smoke inhalation.  The people who had been on the platform (where Foggy was) are getting sick.  There have been news alerts urging everyone who had been in the vicinity of the disaster to please report to the nearest hospital for evaluation.  

The CDC says it’s pneumonia.  

Mr and Mrs Nelson meet Matt outside the hospital.  No one is allowed to see Foggy but there are doctor updates and being there at least makes them feel a little closer to their loved one.  

“He’s going to be okay.”  Mrs Nelson says.  Her heart is racing and Matt can taste salt in the air from the tears she is crying.  

Dr Howard met with the Nelsons earlier.  Foggy is in a coma and shows no signs of waking up.  Foggy is on a ventilator and he isn’t breathing on his own.

…

The hospital is quiet at night.  

Matt is on a nearby roof.    

He doesn't know where Foggy is within the hospital.  He can’t pick out one specific heartbeat among all the other heartbeats in the building.  He’s not going to lie to himself, he did try, but he can’t.  

There’s nothing he can do here.  He wants to check out the subway, he just wanted to be close to his friend again first.  

Matt passes the barricades marking off the 'construction zone'.  He can smell something wrong hanging in the air even this far back.  It's faint.  He goes closer.  Rolls of tape flutter in the breeze closer to the subway exits.  The exits are all sealed.  The fumes from whatever happened become overwhelming before he even reaches the doors.  He can’t… he can’t even draw a full breath as he gets closer.  

It’s nothing he can identify.  He thinks it smells similar to several things, but he somehow knows that it isn't any of those things.  This is something entirely outside of his experience.  

Beyond the smell there is _more_.  A smell is a distinct sense.  A smell does not feel, and yet this one does.  He can sense it floating in the air.  It feels like it is adhering to his clothes and his skin.  He takes off his glove and waves his hand slowly through the air and it leaves trails behind his fingers.  

The longer he stays the harder it is to breathe.  

The longer he stays the more of it he is able to ‘see’.  The air is thicker around the ground, it is a mist that swirls and reaches.  It’s reaching for him.  

The longer he stays the more he hears a low hissing sound.  It’s coming from all around him as whatever it is on the ground shifts and slithers.

He has to leave.  

….

A week has passed.

A celebrity has admitted to being a mutant.  No one cares about the subway disaster any more.  

At Nelson and Murdock Foggy’s office door is closed.  Karen closed it that first day after Matt called her and told her why Foggy wasn't coming into work.  

Matt leaves it closed.  He can hear the silence just as well through the walls.  

The gas explosion story still hasn't been disputed.  No aliens have come to take over or destroy the city yet and so it’s business as usual.  

Hesitant footsteps are climbing the stairs.  They stop, go back, then turn again and resolutely climb.  

A man walks into the office.  

Matt comes out of his office as soon as he smells him.  It's the same scent as the mist around Time Square, faint, but there's enough of it hanging on the man's clothing for Matt to sense it.  

“Can I help you?”  Karen asks.  

“My name’s Joe.  Joe Bradshaw.”  The man walks forward and shakes Karen’s hand.  “He said his name was Foggy.  Is this the right place?”  The man says and pauses to catch his breath.  His breath smells like coffee and eggs.  “Did Foggy Nelson work here?”

“Yes.  I'm his partner, Matthew Murdock. You were with him on the subway?  When the accident happened?”  Matt asks.

Karen does the proper thing and invites the man to sit.

“They shut the doors on us.”  The man coughs and Matt takes an involuntary step back as whatever is in the man’s lungs sprays into the air.  It swirls and lifts, spreading out and exploring.  The scent of the mist around Times Square that had been faint before amplifies in strength.  He reaches out and gently takes Karen’s hand and pulls her back with him but she shakes him off and steps forward instead, leaning over and placing her hand on the man’s shoulder.  

“Would you like a glass of water?”  She asks Joe Bradshaw, and shoots Matt a glare that she knows he can't see.

“Yes.  Please.”  He coughs some more and with each cough the miasma in the air swells and spreads out.  It makes Matt’s skin crawl.  

Karen returns with the water and Matt cringes as she walks right back into the mist yet again.  “You said you were with Foggy in the subway when the explosion happened?”  Karen tries to clarify.  

“On the platform.  I’m a security guard.  He stayed behind to help get the people out of there, and they locked us in.  We banged on the door and I could hear the bastards on the other side.  They could have opened the doors for us, but they didn't.  They locked us down there with that stuff.”

Matt startles as Karen wraps her fingers around his.  He’s so focused on the contaminated air swirling around the office that he hadn't even noticed her move closer.  “What happened?”  Matt asks.  

“We tried to find another way out.  We had to go back down and find another exit.  That smoke, it was thick and it looked weird.”  Joe Bradshaw paused.  More coughing and more of that crap spreading into the air.  Matt felt himself breathing it in and swallowed to control the gag reflex.  “There were two exits.  We split up so at least if one of us got out we could send help for the other.”  

“You got out?”  

“Yeah.  They forgot to lock my exit.  Your friend wasn't so lucky.  I tried.  I told the fire-fighters where he was but they had orders to keep the exits shut.  They could have saved him.”  The man sniffs.  “Fuck.  They could have saved him.  They left him there for hours.  Why couldn't they wear a gas mask or something if they were worried about fumes?  They didn't have to leave him there to die.”

Matt squeezes Karen’s hand.  “He’s not dead.”  

“I was there when they pulled the body out.”  Joe insists.  “It was a body bag.  They had him wrapped up in a bag.”  

Karen makes a soft noise beside him.  

“It wasn't no gas explosion.”  Joe says next.  “They’re lying.”    

“What did it look like?”  Matt asks.  

“The smoke was glowing.”  

Matt and Karen are quiet.  

“Glowing how?”  Karen asks.  

“Green and glowing, bright like those light sticks kids play with.  Like nothing I've ever seen before.”

“What did it smell like?”  Matt asked.

“It sure as hell didn't smell like smoke, I’ll tell you that.”  

…

Rain.  It’s raining the next time Matt meets the Nelsons at the hospital.  They called him because they had news from the doctor and wanted to talk to Matt in person.  They sit on a bench near the front windows and no one speaks.  It’s not good news.  If it was good news they wouldn't be quiet like this.  

“Did Foggy ever talk to you about what he’d want?”  

Matt doesn't answer.  Foggy wants a lot of things.  Last week he told Matt he wanted to schedule an office retreat in Hawaii, you know, once they started making enough money to have something left over after paying the electric bill.

Mrs Nelson continues.  “Maybe back in school?”  

Matt remembers debating the subject in class.  He remembers Foggy helping him prepare for the debate in their dorm room.  He remembers.  Matt stays quiet.  

“The doctor thinks it’s time.  They don’t think he’s going to wake up.  They want to take him off life support.”  Mrs Nelson cries softly.  She’s really Foggy’s step-mom, but Matt knows she loves her son.  “Matthew?”  

“He-”  Matt tries.  He can’t do it.  Foggy says a whole lot of things, constantly.  He never stops saying things.  That doesn't mean he means what he says.  Foggy wasn't even sober when he said it.  It doesn't count.       

Not yet.  

“He wants to live.”  Matt says as emotion overwhelms him and he’s bent double under the pressure of it.  Mrs Nelson pats his back.  He knows this isn't right.  He shouldn't be the one breaking right now, he should be the one offering support and comfort to Foggy’s parents.

…

He’s not going to wait any longer.  

Matt needs to know what happened to his friend.  He’s not wearing the Daredevil suit, he's wearing the protective gear he'd started with, the outfit Foggy referred to as black pyjamas.  He isn't expecting a fight but he does want to keep his identity hidden, just in case.  He knows where to avoid the cameras because he can hear the electrical hum in the wiring.  It’s easy to break into the hospital.  

He takes the service stairs.  He’s thought this through and he has a good idea now what to search for.  Joe Bradshaw had been in the subway with Foggy and he still smelled like the mist, did it not stand to reason that Foggy should have the same scent from having been exposed to it for so long?  

Matt has to at least try. He starts in the lower levels because he wants to be as thorough as possible.  He takes deep breaths.  He can smell the morgue and the kitchens and the laundry rooms.  

He works his way up floor by floor, and takes his time.  He doesn't want to miss anything.  The lower floors are mostly administration and labs.  He smells cleaners.  As he gets closer to the patient floors he is feeling queasy.  Blood, urine, faeces, bile, industrial cleaners, alcohol.  Those are the strongest scents.  He keeps working his way up.  The twelfth floor is where he gets his first whiff of the scent.  It’s faint.  It comes from above.  The fourteenth floor is stronger and on the fifteenth it is less.  He doesn't stop, he goes all the way up to the twentieth.  He goes back.  The fourteenth floor.  He tries the door.  It’s locked.  He sits and listens.  

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

## Chapter 4: Run

9:38 AM

Matt arrives at the office a bit later than normal.  He’s tired.  It was a long night and the office is the last place he wants to be, but he knows it is important to stick with a regular routine.  He’s on the stairs when he hears it.  Karen is crying.  She is crying so hard she is almost choking.  She’s alone.  Matt continues up the stairs and opens the office door, she see’s him and clears her throat, forcibly getting herself under control.  

“We’ve been trying to phone you.”  She clears her throat again and gains more control, but her voice is husky.

Matt closes the door gently behind him.  Waiting.  

Karen steps forward, her arms out.  She pulls Matt into a tight hug, her hand is rubbing his back in an effort to be comforting.  “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.”  Her breath hitches again as she wrestles for control of her emotions.  “Mrs Nelson called.  Foggy passed away last night.”  

* * *

 

_Earlier._

“Well.  This sucks.”  

Foggy paced.  Five steps.  Stop.  Five steps back.  Stop.  

“When the hell are you going to let me out of here?”  He yelled.  

There was no answer.  Of course there was no answer.  There was never any fucking answer.  He was going stir crazy.  It would serve the bastards right if he did go crazy.  The bastards, that was Foggy’s official name for them, wore heavy duty hazmat suits, the kind you only see in disaster movies about radioactive contamination or plagues.  

At first Foggy cooperated.  They took blood tests, and mouth swabs, and hooked him up to different machines and told him everything would be okay.  Why wouldn’t he believe them?  

Foggy was in the hospital.  At least he thought it was a hospital, and he hoped it was.  He was in a small windowless box of a room with a narrow hospital bed and one of those tables on wheels.  There was nothing else in the room.  Nothing.  One wall was made of glass looking out onto an adjoining lab area.  Creepy.  

It was when they refused to allow any communication with the outside that Foggy’s suspicions went into overdrive. He asked more questions.  The hazmat doctors, aka the bastards, stopped answering altogether and then things got really weird.  When the bastards came to do their tests they were accompanied in the lab by security guards.  They wore black and grey uniforms with a patch on the arm that looked like a bunch little circles with a bigger circle on top.  He’d never seen anything like it before.  Private security?  They carried big guns.  Foggy knew nothing about weapons, but he knew these were the scary kind.  

How many days had passed already?  There were no windows and the lights never turned off.  If he were to go by the timing of the meals that were brought to him, he guessed over a week.  On day two he’d already started scratching little marks into the wall as though he were the count of monte cristo.  Instead of days he scratched out the meals.  One scratch per meal.  

And oh my god he was so bored.  He was running out of show tunes to mutilate.  He hoped someone was being forced to listen.  

Something alarming happened yesterday though.  He didn’t see the bastards at all.  He could count on the bastards coming to do tests on him several times a day.  Were they done running tests?  Why hadn’t they let him out?  

At least they were still feeding him.  For now.  

He laid back on the bed and stared at the boring white ceiling above him.  What to do? What to do?  He started in on Little Shop of Horrors, and damn he hoped whoever was monitoring could hear him really really well.  

* * *

 

A shadowy reflection on the glass catches Foggy’s eye and he rolls over.  What was it, meal time or more blood tests?  

Or… neither.  

Holy sht.  

He jumps up and runs to the window.  

Holy shit.  

Matt! Daredevil! The man in the black mask!  Whoever he has decided to be at the moment is in the lab!  And he is saying something but Foggy can only see his lips moving because of the glass wall between them.  And Foggy starts laughing because Holy Shit, Matt is here and he is just so happy to see someone and not be alone anymore.

“Hey, I can’t hear you!  Can you hear me?  Yeah?  Press the button.  The one over there.  That one.”  

“Foggy, are you okay?”  Matt’s voice comes through the speaker.  

Foggy stops laughing and thinks he might start crying.  “Yeah.  Yeah I’m okay.  How did you… where did you… you snuck in.  That’s why you’re dressed like that.   Why aren’t you wearing the other suit?  Is it in the wash?”  Okay, so maybe he is still laughing a bit, just a tiny bit hysterical.  

“How do I get you out of there?”  Matt asks as he explores the rest of the electronics and buttons on the consul.  

“Hey, wait stop.”  Foggy places his hand on the glass.  “I can’t.  I think I might be contagious with something, from what happened at the subway.  No one has come in here without wearing a big spacesuit.”  

He watched Matt pause.  “You’re not.”  

“How would you know?”  

“There are other people on this floor who are sick with some kind of lung infection; I can see it in the air around them.  You aren’t one of them.  You have to come with me, I think they’re planning on killing you.”  Matt explains and goes back to exploring the controls.  

Yeah.  Foggy was getting the same impression about the killing part.  

“You’re sure I’m not sick with something?”

“Yeah.  I sure.”

“If I end up spreading some kind of virus and cause the zombie apocalypse, that’s on you.”  

“Okay.  I can live with that.”  

Foggy points, feels stupid about pointing something out to a blind man, corrects himself that he isn’t pointing something out to just any blind man, and continues pointing.  “Over here there’s a touch pad I’ve seen them use on the wall.  A pattern I think.”  

Matt follows Foggy’s lead and nods.  “Oh.  Uhm, yes.  There’s residue on it.  A pattern.  I can, uh, see it.”  He reaches out and traces the pattern.  

The door doesn’t open but a red light turns on and the room is filled with an obnoxious ringing noise as the alarm goes off.  “I think I did it backwards.”  Matt yells over the cacophony.  He tries it again.  Nothing changes.  He motions with both hands to Foggy to stand back.  Foggy moves back.  

Matt spins and kicks the window.  

It is possibly the most badass thing Foggy has ever seen.  Matt steps forward, glass crunching under his boots.  “Let’s go.”  

Foggy doesn’t move.  “Bare feet.”  

“We have to go.  People are coming.”  

“You aren’t carrying me.”  Foggy warned.  

“Embarrassed or dead?”  Matt asks.  

He has a point.  Matt turns around and crouches just a bit for Foggy to crawl up on his back.  It feels ridiculous.  But Matt has a good point.  Ridiculous is much better than dead.  Matt carries him over the area of broken glass and then set him down in the lab.  They have to run.  

The alarms going off in the hall aren’t any quieter than they were in the room.  There are two security guards running right at them and a nurse hiding behind a desk.  

Matt runs at them.  Holy mother of… he runs right into them punching one and roundhouse kicks the other.  It’s a short fight involving elbows and knees and fists and feet.  A supply cart tips over; Matt gets thrown into the wall and one of the guards has an arm around his throat, and then Matt kicks out again and security guard one gets a boot to the face and security guard two is flipped over onto his back and punched three times in the head.  They’re down.  Matt turns back to Foggy and holds out his hand.  “Come on.”  

Foggy goes.  

The damn alarms are still screeching and it hurts Foggy’s ears, he wonder what it sounds like to Matt.  He gets an idea when Matt trips on a package of bandages on the floor from when the supply cart went down.  Foggy grabs his arm and hauls him forward.  They keep running.  

“Do you have a plan?”  Foggy yells.  

“No.”  

Great.  

“But,”  Matt adds.  “There’s a walkway between buildings on the floor above us.  If we can make it across we should be able to make through the other building and out.”  

At least that’s something.  

Matt kicks open the fire doors to the stairwell and they run up.  The doors on the fifteenth level open up to an office area.  Matt grabs Foggy’s hand and pulls him along until they reach a corridor.  It’s the walkway.

The doors don’t open.  Foggy stands back while Matt kicks at the handle.  He kicks at the window.  Nothing.  It’s not happening.  Footsteps are rushing towards them through the halls.  

More guards.  Scary guns.  Foggy doesn’t even exist to them.  They have all their attention on Matt.  Matt stops kicking the door and turns around.  His shoulders are set; his mouth is grim.  

Foggy watches.  It’s like everything's in slow motion.  There’s a flash of light and sound.  Foggy reaches out because he has to stop this.  

And it stops.  

Matt stumbles backwards slightly, but not because he’s been shot.  

The bullets are held in mid air.  

Foggy looks at the security guards and pushes.  He doesn’t move, but the guards fly backwards, hit the wall and fall to the ground.  They don’t get up.  Foggy turns towards the doors and Matt hastily steps out of the way.  Again, Foggy doesn’t move, the doors burst outwards.  

Matt is very still.  Foggy runs forward and grabs his hand.  They run.  

…

9:40 AM

Matt is standing in his office and Karen is sobbing on his shoulder.  

Her voice is barely functioning as she says,  “Mrs Nelson called.  Foggy passed away last night.”

_No, he didn’t._   


	5. Chapter 5

 

Matt isn’t reacting the way Karen expects him too.  He sits on the edge of the desk, his white cane held loosely in front of him, listening to her move around the office.  She already called the clients Matt had been scheduled to meet with.  They don’t have any trials or court dates coming up.  Business has been slow.  

There’s a sharp smell of permanent marker in the air, the squeak of felt pen on paper.  “What did you write?”

“Closed until further notice,”  She stops to take a shaky breath.  “Due to the death of Partner, Franklin Nelson.”

“Don’t.  Don’t put that up.  Just write, closed until further notice.”  Matt corrects her.  

He hears the paper go into the waste basket.  She writes it out again.  This time just: closed until further notice.  He listens to the letters as they are printed out.  He counts them in his head just to make sure she isn't adding anything.   

Karen tears off two pieces of tape from the dispenser; she crosses the room and places the sign in the window.  

“Matt?”

"I'm fine."  He is fine.  

Karen touches his arm, pulls him into a hug again.    

"I don't think you should be alone today."  Karen says.  She's worried.  Of course she is worried.  Matt has been on the verge of falling apart for a week.  

"I'll be fine."  His voice sounds hollow and wrong to his own ears.  

**********

“They’re telling everyone I’m dead?”  Foggy says, and his voice is quiet and sad.

They are in an empty apartment Matt found; close to Mount Sinai hospital because Foggy had been wearing patient pajamas and nothing on his feet.  It’s a nice apartment.  Street level.  The owners seemed to be on an extended vacation.  There’s a thin layer of dust on everything, nothing in the fridge and very little left in the closets.  Matthew assured Foggy that no one had been around to check on the place for at least a month.    

Foggy couldn’t bring himself to use the bed, but he had more sleep on the couch in the living room than he’d had since the subway incident.  

Foggy’s wearing real clothes now, and shoes.  Matt brought him a bag of things he’d need after leaving the office.  After telling Karen that he'd rather be alone right now and would call her later.  After he left her crying.  

“My parents think I’m dead, too?”  

“Yes.  Your mom called Karen this morning before I got to work.”  

“What did Karen say?”  

Matt rubs at his face and sits down beside Foggy.  “She’s upset.  Obviously.”  He laughs.  Inappropriately, he knows.  “She’s worried about me.  She think’s I’m in denial.”  

Foggy reaches out and takes Matt’s hand.  They sit there like that for a while, side by side holding hands.  “We should tell her.”  

“Tell her what?”  

“I want to let her know I’m alright.  What if those agents from the hospital think she might know something?”  

“You can’t be serious.”  

“Matt.”  

Matt stands up.  "She's safest not knowing anything about this."

There hadn’t been enough time the night before to process anything yet.  There was only enough time to find a safe place for Foggy to hide before going home and getting ready for work.  

They haven’t had a chance to talk.  Not about… about anything actually.  

"She deserves to know the truth.  

"Does she?”  Matt asks.  “How about a week ago when you phoned to tell me you weren’t coming over?  You weren’t too concerned about being truthful then.”

“That’s different.”  

“How?  How is it any different than what I did to you?”

Foggy tilts his head back against the couch cushion.  He’s still tired but he knew this was coming.  As soon as he woke up in the hospital, not dead, he knew there was going to be some explaining to do.  

Foggy says, “There was nothing you could have done.  I didn’t want to upset you.”  

“I knew right away something was wrong.”  

Foggy says, “I thought I was about to die.”

“After you went quiet, I stayed on the line.  Could you hear me talking to you?”  

“No.”  

Matt says, “I listened to you stop breathing.”   

Foggy gets up pulls Matt into his arms and Matt holds on like it’s a lifeline.  He's shaking and he can't stop.

Foggy says, “I’m sorry.”  He is so sorry.  

**********

“Give me your phone.”  It’s not a request, it’s an order.  Matt hands it over and just listens.  This isn’t his secret to keep, and he hopes Foggy knows what he is doing.  Foggy has used his phone before and is familiar with it.  

He double taps the menu button and says, “Phone Karen.”  

There is a chime as the phone recognises the command and follows through.  

“Matt, are you okay?  I went to your apartment to check on you but you weren’t there.  Where are you?”  

“Karen, it’s Foggy.”  Foggy answers.  There’s silence on the other end.  “Matt’s with me.  We’re both okay.”

“What the hell?”

The conversation on Foggy’s side goes something like: _I was being held prisoner in the hospital.  I escaped.  There are ‘bad guys’ involved.  I don’t know who they are.  No, you can’t come see me, I’m in hiding.  We need to keep this a secret.  Be safe, I’ll call you later._

“See, that wasn’t so hard.”  Foggy lies.  

“You didn’t mention the part about having super powers.”  Matt reminds him.  

“Say that again after I put a hood over my face and start a crime fighting career.”

**********

“What do we do?”  Foggy asks.  

Matt is on look out because he can literally see outside without having to open the blinds.  “I don’t know.”  

There is something seriously wrong with Foggy.  

Obviously.  

“Maybe we should start with trying to figure out how you are able to stop bullets in mid-air.”  Matt suggests.  

There’s a slight change in the atmosphere of the room, a tingling in the air that Matt can feel crawling up his spine.  “Foggy.”  His voice is strained.  There is a tendril, it looks like a tentacle, being drawn out from Foggy’s body.  It is both fascinating and horrifying because it's like he can see it.  It has details that are more defined than anything he's come in contact with since he lost his sight.  It defies everything he knows about the word around him and feels completely alien.  

And there is no scent.      

“Foggy don’t.”  

The tentacle retracts and disappears.

Foggy’s heart is beating so fast it almost matches the speed of Matt’s own.  

“You can sense it?”

“Yeah.”  Matt answers.  

"What does it look like?"

“It’s kind of like an extra arm.”

“Really?  I can’t see it at all.”  And the tentacle comes out again, fast and bright and Matt jumps out of his chair and backs into the farthest corner of the room before it can touch him.  

“Matt?  I’m not going to hurt you.”  

“I know.  But, we don’t know what that thing is.”  He covers because he hadn’t meant to react like that.  “We don’t know what it's doing to you.  We don’t know.  Don’t experiment with ti.  We just need to figure out how to get it out of you.”  

Foggy doesn’t reach out again.  

**********

“There are men outside.”  Matt says and places his hand on the wall close to the window.  “Three, no four.  They, have guns.”  He backs up and gets close to Foggy.  “We have to- I have to get you out of here.”  

There aren’t a lot of places to go.  They didn’t choose this place because it was strategic, they chose it because it was close and empty.  There’s been too much going on to form any real plans.  No, that’s not true.  He and Foggy have been sitting around doing not much of anything for the entire morning.  Matt might have fallen into a light doze because for the first time in over a week the tightness constricting his chest has released and it feels like he can breathe without breaking.   Matt’s brain has shut down and gone on strike.  

They should have been preparing for this.   

“I think in the basement there might be an old access to the building next door.”  Matt suggests, and they run.  

They hear glass break as they reach the basement.  

It looks like there are just walls, but Matt can sense that there’s more behind.  It’s old.  There is a false wall over a boarded up doorway.  He starts prying at the wood with a crowbar he picks up off the floor.  Foggy is standing by the stairs, standing guard, waiting.  

The door at the top of the stairs opens and…

The atmosphere changes and Matt fumbles the crowbar.  He isn't nearly far enough to reach the door hidden underneath yet.  They aren't going to make it.    Foggy is standing with his arm out and the tentacle is flowing out of the palm of his hand and it is filling up the doorway, keeping the men out.  Everything is muffled through the barrier that he’s made.  

Foggy’s heart is beating very, very fast.  

Bullets are being fired.  Matt can hear them but he can’t smell them, which seems odd until he realises Foggy has plugged up the entire staircase with his whatever it was.   

Matt stops working on the wall.  “I can hear them, there are more outside on radios.  They know what we’re doing and they’re cutting off the other building.  They’ll be waiting.”  

There has to be another another way.  A sewer?  No.  There’s only a drain.  Maybe at one time there had been something but all Matt can sense are layers of cement.  

Foggy’s heart sounds like a drum.  Impossibly past.  He’s still blocking the doorway.  

The tingling in the air intensifies into a rolling heat.  The extension of Foggy's arm flows and wraps in on itself and then envelops the men on the stairs.  They’re screaming.  They’re scared.  They are choking?  

They are passed out on the floor.  Passed out, not dead.  Still breathing.  

Foggy grabs his arm and they run up the stairs.  “Which way?”  

“South exit.”  Matt says.  Out the back into the alley.  This is Matt’s territory, the alleys, and roofs.  He takes the lead and they evade the agents who are still trying to figure out what the hell just happened.  

Foggy is out of breath, and throws up beside a dumpster.  His heart's still beating way too fast and there’s the taste of copper in the air.  

Foggy is not okay.  “I think we need to get it out of me.”  Foggy says.  There's blood on Foggy's face.  A nose bleed.  He's clutching his chest in pain.

Matt agrees.  They have to get whatever it is out of him.

“I think I need to go back to the subway.”  Foggy adds.  

It’s the last place Matt wants to go, but there is no way Foggy is going anywhere without him.  

**Author's Note:**

> No major character death.


End file.
